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Final Paper

From Honors Symposium, I have learned that being civically engaged can have far-flung
effects on the communities we inhabit. Being involved can bring about significant social change
(for the better or the worse) and being uninvolved can cause us to lag behind and cause the
community as a whole to suffer. As Putnam said in the first reading, there is a serious lack of
face-to-face social capital in todays society. I believe that this is leading to many of the
problems that communities face today. In communities that tend to be lower in socioeconomic
status, there seems to be a trend of parents that are less involved in the childrens schooling and
their community as a whole. In direct contrast, many higher socioeconomic communities have
people that are very involved in their community; the inhabitants provide a lot of community
service, they donate money, they are active in their childrens schooling, and they are just all
around more active in shaping their community.
One of the most important parts of the community is the public schooling and along those
lines, the extent to which parents are involved in the process. Dr. Bridget Williams was able to
revamp the schools that she was in charge of by making sure that the teachers and staff were
invested in the school. This showed the students that people care about their well-being and
education. If every parent were active in their childs education (meaning they check up on
school work, get involved at the school, and genuinely care about the schooling), then the
schools would more effectively go about their job of educating citizens because the students
would be much more motivated to learn. In my experience in my service learning, I have seen
that showing a kid that you care about them and actually listening them can change their outlook
on learning completely. There was one student in my fifth grade class that tended to act up a lot
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and would not do his work. One day when he was refusing to work, I sat down with him
individually and helped him do his work. This simple act of showing I cared was enough to make
him take an interest in the lesson and from that day on he participated every class and always did
his work. Public schooling is important in America because it is the means through which
everyone gains access to the American Dream. Hochschild and Scovronick argue this in The
American Dream and the Public Schools. Striving for this dream will strengthen communities
because people will be striving to create businesses and succeed in all that they do. All in all, I
believe that the most important thing I have learned from Honors Symposium is that Education is
the key to everything in life and is a major component of the glue that holds communities
together.
Academically, I have become more focused on making sure I get a solid education. My
original reason for focusing on this was so that I can get a decent job and live a happy life. After
this class though, I have realized that this also opens doors for me to help out my community
which is extremely rewarding and give great returns on any amount of investment. Being an
engineer gives me a great platform from which to tutor people in math and science. While I am
in college, I am going to make sure to do my best to volunteer for tutoring organizations and to
help out my friends with all that I can. Once I graduate and have a real job, I will do my best to
keep up this tradition of tutoring people in my community whether it is helping high school or
college students, adults getting a degree later in life, or other engineers where I work. This will
improve the conditions in my community by creating more people that can better contribute to
the community through solid jobs in the science and engineering fields. And it will hopefully
cause some of the other people in my community to keep the tradition of teaching others alive.
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Dr. Nancy Stanlicks presentation highlighted just how important it is to keep
academically honest. The Honors community is known for containing some of the smartest
students at our university. This lends itself to extreme scrutiny as far as cheating and plagiarism
goes. Because of this, if one member of the Honors College is cause for academic dishonesty,
then it reflects poorly on all of us. We need to maintain our integrity if we are to maintain the
prestige of the Honors College. Dr. Stanlicks presentation also showed that this need to
maintain integrity should extend though my entire life. In all that I do I should never cheat and
always follow through with what I say I am going to do.
Professionally, this course has shown me that it is important to keep my habits of
volunteering and helping others alive and to improve upon them as I enter my career. Mr.
Blitchs presentation on corporate responsibility highlighted how it is always possible to find
time and resources to help out your community. It also showed me that if I am ever in a position
of power in a large corporation, it is important that I make sure the corporation gives back to the
community. This is because corporations get so much from communities; labor, money from
products sold, factories, etc. If they were to not give back it would seem like they are taking from
the community and putting all the money into selfish things that only benefit the company.
This also plays into the economics of the nation as a whole. In the 2012 election, one of
the most important issues was the economy and job creation. In our discussion posting, we
looked at the economic policy of both candidates and debated which was better. This brought to
my attention just how bad the job situation gets in a downturned economy. Because of this, I
now see how important it is to build a solid resume so that I am more attractive to potential
employers.
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Civically, Honors Symposium has highlighted different ways that I can actively shape the
community in which I live for the better. Dr. Lapchicks Lecture on Social justice and Mr.
Freemans lecture on disturbing the universe talked about how social issues affect our
community. They were great opportunities for me to see that not everyone has it as easy as I do.
There are people out there that are discriminated against on a daily basis and it has basically
become socially acceptable. The lectures motivated me to do my best to stand up for these
groups whenever possible because most of the time people will not listen to what they have to
say. Take the DREAM act for example. Jose Antonio Vargas article shows that the immigrants
that are going to be helped by this act are basically normal citizens and have not broken any laws
by their choice. Many people will not listen to these children because they are so young, they are
labeled as immigrants and so given less credence as a citizen would have, and (sad as it may
be) they are usually minorities. They are just as or more productive that the average citizen and
so would give the economy a great boost. They do not have a voice and it is our duty as civically
engaged people (especially in areas that have large portions of the population that would be
affected by the DREAM act) to speak for them.
The best way to go about creating the changes that we want to see in the world is though
voting. One of the biggest problems with voting, though, is that a lot of younger people do not
care about their right to vote. Susan Saulnys article highlights just how little faith this groups
has in the effect of their vote on society as a whole. Young voters seem to think that the
government does not actually listen to them and so their vote is wasted. The real problem is that
so few young people vote, that there are not enough votes for the candidates they support and so
they do not have people elected into office that represent their interests.
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All in all, Honors Symposium has been a fantastic experience that has opened my eyes to
many of the issues surrounding civic engagement. I have learned the theory and reasoning
behind these issues. But I have also seen firsthand how much of an impact I can have on a group
of students which puts all the theory into practice. This has definitely impacted how the rest of
my college career will go and how I remain active in my community for the rest of my life.



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Works Cited
Hochschild, Jennifer L., and Nathan B. Scovronick. "What Americans Want From Public
Schools." The American dream and the public schools. New York: Oxford University
Press, 2003. 9-27. Print.
Putnam, Robert D., Lewis M. Feldstein, and Don Cohen. "Introduction." Better together:
restoring the American community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003. 1-10. Print.
SAULNY, SUSAN. "Economy Cuts Into Obama s Youth Support - NYTimes.com." The
New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. The New York Times
Company, 1 July 2012. Web. 3 Oct. 2012.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/02/us/politics/economy-cuts-into-obamas-youth-
support.html?_r=0>.
Vargas, Jose Antonio. "Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech
Reviews." Time. Time, n.d. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2117243,00.html>.